A base station according to a mobile communication standard, such as LTE, typically applies varying power scaling values for resource elements transporting payload data to a mobile terminal relative to resource elements used for the transmission of reference symbols to the mobile terminal. For higher modulation orders the base station informs the terminal about the scaling factor that is applied. However, for certain QPSK transmissions (e.g. Rank 1 transmission), the scaling factor is typically not communicated. Since in scenarios with strong interference, e.g. from base stations operating cells neighboring the terminal's serving cell the estimation process of the scaling factor is typically very complex, efficient approaches to estimate a scaling factor in such scenarios are desirable.